


Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall; which is Fairest of All?

by Bookend



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: AU, And is easily distracted, Community: asscreedkinkmeme, Evolving Tags, Genius at work, Imprisonment, Leonardo hates politics, M/M, Politics, Rating May Change, Templar!Leonardo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookend/pseuds/Bookend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say humanity is flawed and stupid. While one man alone is intelligent and clever, mankind as a whole needs strict guidance to avoid pandemonium and chaos. Or so they say, and who is Leonardo to argue with his betters in the Order of the Templars - for the Father Of Understanding guides everyone.  ...Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is written for the prompt found at http://asscreedkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/2158.html?thread=11186030#cmt11186030 (to read the latest chapter(s), follow that link - it will be updated there first)
> 
> Except where otherwise noted, game-canon trumps RL canon (thus, Leonardo already has a workshop in 1475, and moves to Venice instead of Milan). Minor liberties with the timelines and characters has been taken, too, in order to make it all fit together. And multiple minor characters may or may not have had their personality drastically altered in order to allow them to play more important people within this story. 
> 
> The more specific timelines have been taken from the Assassin's Creed wikia.

_Firenze, May 1474_

Leonardo hummed to himself, charcoal skittering across the parchment to shape a bird in flight. Absentmindedly, he added a few trees, some rocks, a little brook, and eventually felt sad when he ran out of space on the paper to add to the nature image. He had to practise on not letting his mind wander so much while sketching, and instead stick to only his original purpose. After all, he could save a fortune in paper if he could teach himself to fit five or ten drawings on one sheet, instead of wasting it all on one sketch.

Turning the paper over and starting on his songbird anew - this time continually reminding himself to stay to _just the bird, just the bird, no water or water wheels or wagons in the background and could one make a wagon that runs on water?_ and then he simply forgot all about feathers and birds in favour of gears and wheels and pumps. His mind merrily churning as he sketched, discarded, imagined, and fiddled with the design for something that could work without losing water pressure or requiring a secondary source of energy.

And when the knock on the door finally filtered through the sheer number of thoughts in his head, he had already moved on to another project entirely; testing the strength of various metals and trying to design a new type of wheel at the same time. Looking up with an owlish blink, realising that the sky outside had long since gone dark, he quickly tried to wipe the worst of the charcoal off on a rag - only succeeding in smearing them with paint as well - he jogged to the door, hoping fervently that the person outside had not lost patience and left already.

“ _Mi dispiace_ , I was momentarily occupied,” he said as he pulled open the door, wincing at its screech. He had to oil the hinges, and soon.

The man outside appeared less than amused with the apology, but Leonardo felt somewhat relieved that he had the dress of an errand boy, and not, say, a powerful potential patron. “Letter for you, _ser_ ,” the man merely said, handing the artist an envelope.

Leonardo frowned immediately at the cross emblazoned on the seal, waving a hand dismissively with a muttered _grazie_ , and completely failed to notice the messenger’s annoyed expression at his lack of a tip as the door fell shut again. Taking the few steps over to one of his work benches, Leonardo unceremoniously shoved the sketches and tools there to the side, placing the letter on the now-cleared space. And stared at it, trying to decipher the contents by appearance alone.

Of course he had been initiated in the order - Verrocchio would not have settled for anything else for his prize student. It had been those contacts that had landed Leonardo in a workshop of his own, where his talents had caught the eye of the powerful though not particularly Templar-friendly Medici family. But he was quite low in the hierarchy, still - useful for little more than the current gossip in the court. Leonardo was still young, and the Medici saw him as no more than one of their many, many pet artists. It would take many years of work before Leonardo would find himself in positions where he would be privy to any worthwhile information, especially when he had to actually struggle to feign any interest in politics - so why would he receive a letter from the Order?

He was not even aware of how his hands were shaking until he grasped the flat letter-knife, and spent a few minutes to merely breathe, trying to settle his nerves. Carefully, he pried off the seal, pulled the folded paper out, and settled down to read. It was, he found, a surprisingly brief message. Void of anything personal; void of anything that could be traced to the writer or to the receiver if not for the stamp of the Templar Cross at the bottom, and was obviously a message that had been mass-distributed.

_The Assassin has been seen recently_  
  
We suspect he is allied to the Medici   
  
Report any sights of the Assassin   
  
If the chance offers itself, kill him   
  
May the Father of Understanding guide us

A simple warning, then. Leonardo breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. While he feared the Assassins, as any member of the Templar order did - for whom did not fear this sect that thrived on chaos and destruction, and who would strike down any bearers of the Cross, for no reason other than to dole out their own demented version of judgement? Leonardo had heard plenty of stories of the white-clad maniacs; of people who would hide in squalor and filth, and destroy entire governments at a whim, should they see too much order and peace in one place.

Still, Leonardo hoped that whatever Assassin that lived in Firenze would be of the more peaceful sort, and that the apparent alliance with Lorenzo de’Medici would allow for at least some measure of peace and quiet to remain in the city. Not to mention that he was pretty sure he would be dead if such a monster came about, he was also quite certain that even if the opportunity presented itself, he just wouldn’t have the nerve to kill another person - Assassin or not.

No, Leonardo would be perfectly happy if he could go through his life without ever meeting an Assassin.


	2. Chapter 2

_Firenze, August 1474_

Leonardo found there were several advantages to being near Lorenzo’s court - one was that the young _Il Magnifico_ enjoyed surrounding himself with bright, artistic, and philosophical minds, and as such Leonardo had met several men with interests like his own - granted, he had to find roughly eight men to fully cover his myriad of hobbies - and often spent hours lost in discussions, arguments, and collective tinkering. While Verrocchio did try to encourage Leonardo to focus on one or at most two topics at a time, the younger polymath found that to be an impossible task; and it  had become somewhat of a game among the other artists to guess what Leonardo’s latest project was.

That, really, was why he was carrying the heavy box home, darting this way and that while muttering his apologies, trying to find a clear path through the crowd without losing his tentative grip on the frail, wooden box in the process. He had, earlier that morning, found himself without the required know-how to continue his project, and, thus, had sought the help of the more skilled metalworkers and woodworkers of Lorenzo’s court.

Something that had had half a dozen people cooing and chatting admirably as they discussed uses and functions and improvements, until, eventually, he had been sent to the northeastern part of the city, where the smith there had the skills and tools to aid him. The smith, too, had been most interested in the project, though he had declared it nigh useless for anything but ornamental purposes, but had willingly given Leonardo a brief lesson in metalworking.

All learnings of the day combined, the artist found his head buzzing with a thousand ideas brought on by his new knowledge of tensile strengths and metal hollows and wood fibres - which did not exactly help on his focus while trying to navigate a busy, generally distracted crowd. Turning into one of the smaller alleys near _La Rosa Colta_ \- while it was a detour - Leonardo had only just managed a sigh of relief and allow his mind to temporarily mull over a specific kind of filigree he wanted to add to his project, when he walked straight into another person. His grip on the box slipped, and the container fell to the ground with all of the stealth and grace of a box full of wooden parts and metal.

“ _Scusami_ , _Madonna_ ,” Leonardo quickly, and immediately moved into cursing under his breath, scrambling to pick up the many bits and pieces from the flagstones - the only good thing about the current situation being that the box itself had survived the fall.

“No harm done, _Messere_ ,” the woman replied, and Leonardo was - for a fleeting moment - distracted by the rich, gold pattern in her skirt, and how the stiff cloth shifted when she squatted next to him, painted hands picking up pieces as well.

“ _Grazie_ ,” he muttered, and followed the trail of small gears that had rolled a small distance away.

When he turned, though, he spotted that the woman had picked up the prototype he had worked on, and was inquisitively turning it this way and that. Inspecting the tiny crossbow with, he instantly spotted, an unexpectedly skilled eye.

“You have interesting tastes, _Messere_ ,” the woman said with a peculiarly warm smile as she passed him the fist-sized weapon. “You are an engineer?”

“Just a painter with odd hobbies, _Madonna_ ,” Leonardo replied, carefully placing his project back in the box along with the bits and pieces that could be used to construct several more - with some additional work.

“Please, call me Paola,” _Madonna_ Paola said, with a longing glance at the box. “Are you building this for a patron, _Messere_?”

“Leonardo,” Leonardo said, hefting the box back into his arms, and found Paola moving forward, helping him get his hands properly under the vessel, so that he would be less likely to drop it if jostled. “I’m... ah, _grazie_. And no, _Madonna_ , this is merely a project of mine. It… doesn’t have the power to kill a man at any distance. Even at point blank, it would take a fair amount of luck to do much more than stun. Not to mention that at this size, the trigger is too small for any man to pull...”

“So it incapacitates, but does not kill? A strange weapon indeed, ser Leonardo,” Paola said, and looked at him with her arms crossed and an enigmatic smile. “Perhaps you would be willing to sell it to me? I run _La Rosa Colta_ , and there are plenty of men who become… rowdy. A weapon small enough to be hidden in a skirt would be a great asset to my girls. Perhaps you would even be willing to make a few more of these little _balestra_?”

Leonardo gaped for a moment, surprised that anyone would be interested in his miniature crossbow, and then his mind immediately raced down new paths, quickly making the rudimentary first plans for a courtesan armed to the teeth with invisible, fully hidden weaponry. He was not even aware that he had given his enthusiastic agreement before Paola laughed and took him by the arm, leading him towards the brothel.   
  


_Firenze, December 1474_

“Oh, but _monsieur_ Leonardo, this is _fantastique_!” the girl chirped, her french accent garbling her Italian into something that the artist supposed made her seem exotic to the customers.

“ _Si_ , _si_ , now hold still,” he muttered, finishing the last adjustments to make sure that the delicate weapon would not go off by accident from where it was nestled in the courtesan’s corset. “There. Done, _signorina_.”

“ _Merci_ , ser Leonardo,” the girl tittered, battering her eyelashes, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m impressed, Leonardo,” Paola said, turning over her own version of the decorative, palm-sized container that, with a simple press of a hidden button, would spit heavy smoke and allow an attacked courtesan to make a clean escape - or, at least, so Leonardo hoped.

“I’m happy to be of help,” he replied, brushing the lip-paint off his cheek and went to take a deep swallow from the glass of wine the courtesans had provided him, trying to get the cloying scent of perfume out of his nose after spending so long adjusting the little weapons for each of Paola’s courtesans.

“Still, your work will do wonders in keeping my girls safe. I believe we owe you a reward outside of money,” Paola replied. Leonardo had only just started thinking of how he could gracefully decline the services of a girl, masking his thoughts with another deep draught from the wine, when she continued: “I do happen to know several handsome and very discreet young men that would be happy to help.”

It was only by the grace of quick reflexes that Leonardo managed to not spit his wine all over Paola’s carpet at that.

“What?!” he spluttered, once he had managed to regain his breath after several arduous seconds of coughing, simultaneously horrified and embarrassed.

“Peace, Leonardo,” Paola said, almost managing to hide the fact that she was about ready to keel over from laughter, and held up a hand to stop his stammered, broken protests. “I’ve seen you work with my girls’ corsets and skirts for two days now, and not once has your hand or eye strayed from your task. Despite, I may add, the girls’ attempts. And that kind of willpower in a man means that either he desires something different, or nothing at all.” Her smile turned wry. “And it is my experience that very few artists are of the sort that desires nothing.”

Leonardo stared for a bit longer, not entirely unlike a particularly shocked goldfish, utterly taken aback by how easily the Madonna had guessed something he was nervous about admitting to himself. While he was well aware of _Firenze_ ’s apparent leniency towards the matter, despite the Officers of the Night and the Church’s less-than-friendly view on the same, the hangings that did still happen from time to time had spooked Leonardo enough that he tried to be as subtle about his preferences as possible. To be found out this easily and quickly was disconcerting.

Paola’s smile was inscrutable; a skill likely earned through a lifetime of deception and hiding in plain sight. “Trust me,” she said, crossing her legs and made the artist’s fingers itch to sketch the way her dress folded, “my boys are very discreet. As are the clients I choose for them. The trust, after all, must go both ways.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Firenze, January 1475_

Leonardo grumbled in annoyance at his drawing. He had wanted to sketch the recently finished _Palazzo Auditore_ , to capture the lines and design of the building - with its free-standing, square nature, it was a masterpiece of straight lines and perspective. And now that he finally had time to try his hand at free-sketching the building, he found that he simply could not focus.

Instead, his mind kept returning to the brief glimpse he had gotten of two boys running across the rooftops, hurling themselves fearlessly across alleys and streets with a strange disregard for their own safety. And the climax! The leap that both boys had done from the very top of a house and into the cart of flower petals. What had once merely been the leftover decorations from some spoiled nobleman’s party had been transformed into a cushion, catching the young bodies and protecting them from becoming yet an unsightly mess on the cobblestones.

Almost unbidden, Leonardo found his hand adding a single figure to the roof of his sketch; arms outstretched, legs together, falling as if it was a crucified Messiah with no cross, caught in the very moment after the fearless leap. Feeling a moment of pity, Leonardo quickly added a little cart of hay below the figure.

It had, of course, not escaped his attention that it was much the same manner of locomotion that the Assassins were said to employ - but Leonardo doubted that the two boys, not even out of their teens, had anything to do with the Assassin of Firenze. Most likely, they had merely seen the Assassin move about on the roofs, and, as young boys are in the habit of, decided to emulate that behaviour. Leonardo remembered only too well the brief craze that had swept through Vinci not long after he had moved to his father’s house, and dozens of young men had been terribly injured from trying to drive a speeding cart while standing on the coach’s seat.

Finally concluding that he was far too distracted to sketch a dull, boring building that was not in any kind of movement or climbing on rooftops, leaping off towers with a blatant indifference towards gravity - and temporarily stalled his own train of thought with trying to picture a building jumping off another - he packed up his tools and headed for home.

 _Madonna_ Paola  had placed an order for more of the little, folded blades that served a secondary function of keeping the courtesans’ hair in their customary horns. And while Leonardo had tried to insist that she should ask the smith instead, she had politely countered with the fact that the smith generally supplied only what the order was for, while Leonardo had a tendency to get inspired along the way and add additional little details - if not merely creating something entirely different and far more efficient than what he had been asked for in the first place. Like his last commission from _La Rosa_ which had resulted in hollowed necklaces that, if pulled just so, would release a normally colourless liquid, that, when coming into contact with the courtesan’s perfume, would immediately turn a vivid, alarming red, not entirely unlike fresh blood.

Perhaps he could make some kind of knife hidden in a bracelet - pull at an ornamental stone, and the blade would flip outwards, ready to slice into any attacker. Of course, there was the matter of making the blade strong enough to be useful, while still being thin enough to hide seamlessly within the bracelet. And he would have to figure out a way to make it safe to use, so that no amorous client or the courtesan herself could accidentally trigger the mechanism. Perhaps if he made it so that it could be easily removed and thrown, and the speed would cause several small blades to unfurl…

“Still getting lost in your own head, Vinci?” a voice asked as he was unlocking his door, mentally puzzling over a method to shrink the size of the tumbler and maybe add more for additional security.

“ _Stronzo_?” Leonardo asked in surprise, looking up to see the other man stand in the little alcove at his front door. “How long have you been there?”

“Oh, about ten minutes, if you count in the time I spent following you around the city to see when you’d pay me any attention,” Emilio Russo replied with a broad grin, showing off the gap where he had lost a tooth in some old scruffle that always changed with each retelling. “I was starting to wonder if I could follow you inside and make myself at home before you noticed.”

“ _Stronzo_ ,” Leonardo chuckled and affectionately punched his old friend's shoulder. “Please, come in, come in! Let me hear all about _bella Venezia_!”

“It’s big, wet, and stinks,” Emilio replied, going to investigate Leonardo’s cramped bookshelf while the artist unloaded his bag on a table and went to fetch wine for them both. “You really need to start reading books instead of swallowing them, Vinci. It’s not good for the digestion.”

“And I trust your expertise on the matter of digestion,” Leonardo quipped, passing a cup to Emilio. “Come now, you cannot leave it at that. You know how much I’ve always wanted to visit the floating city.”

“The city is wondrous only from a distance, my dear Vinci,” the other man said, and quickly glanced around to ensure that the door was firmly shut before he grimaced at nothing in particular. “Things are not well. It is not much, yet, but the Barbarigo have begun to insert themselves in important positions around the city. Emilio Barbarigo in particular has applied the wealth accumulated from his weapons dealings towards taking over _Venezia_ ’s entire militia, and has most of the merchants’ area in his pocket. Sometimes I worry that he completely has lost sight of our cause.” Emilio shook his head in disgust. “Makes me ashamed to share his name. May the Father of Understanding guide him.”

“May the Father of Understanding guide him,” Leonardo echoed, almost reflexively, and frowned as well, inspecting the bottom of his cup and found himself momentarily distracted with a fault in the hammered metal. “I have heard of trouble brewing with the Pazzi here in _Firenze_ as well. Lorenzo de’Medici  is an Assassin supporter, so I would be surprised if the two families did not come to blows over the city soon.”

“Well, if that comes to pass, then you know you’re always welcome in _Venezia_ as my guest,” Emilio said and clasped Leonardo’s arm in support, before breaking into a grin. “Enough of that. Now, Vinci, I must know - have I been missed at the Medici court?”

Leonardo smiled at that. “Oh, you know Clarice. She immediately declared you to be her favourite painter of all, and spent no less than a month insisting that none of us had even a drop of your talent,” he replied, refilling his cup and making a mental note to get more the next time he was out. “Until Stephano left, of course. Then she latched onto him as her favourite. Actual talent is apparently not a requirement to get into her grace.”

“That woman is never happy with anyone still within her reach, is she?” Emilio did another lap of the workshop while Leonardo finished unpacking his bag - only to be suddenly shoved aside when Emilio spotted the drawing of the Palazzo Auditore. “Leonardo! Is… Is that...?”

“A couple of the boys here have started to climb on the roofs,” Leonardo explained, patting his old friend’s shoulder comfortingly. “Don’t worry. As far as I know, I have yet to see _Il Assassino_ in person.”

“I suspect we have several in _Venezia_ ,” the other man said, scowling at the sketched figure. “I’ve seen this exact leap before. Perhaps some of mine may have come here…”

“Or the Assassin has spawned,” Leonardo said, and went to put his charcoals away in their assigned boxes.

Emilio shuddered, putting the drawing back down. “Perish the thought. It’s bad enough that you never know when they fall on you from a roof, or spring from an innocent cart of hay like a particularly vengeful demon. The last thing we need is for them to have offspring, too!”

“Well, the Assassin has certainly been around long enough for that, and as far as I know, the Assassins are still humans. Just imagine if the daughter of _Il Assassino_ has been one of your many adoring girls,” Leonardo said, and somehow managed to keep his laughter at bay at Emilio’s immediately mortified expression. “I jest, _stronzo_!”

“Oh, good. For a moment there, I saw my life pass by my eyes.” Emilio drained his cup, and Leonardo dutifully refilled it. “Still, an Assassin with offspring is a terrible thought. Especially as I’ve heard that your Assassin here is one of those with the _occhi demone_.”

“A curious rumour, yes,” the artist replied, pouring more wine for himself. “But I shall believe in it when I get a chance to hear a first-hand account from the Assassin himself. Until then, it seems too fantastic to be true.”

“Always the rational one, aren’t you, Vinci?” Emilio asked with a fond smile. “You would deny the sanctity of the True Cross, even if you held it in your own hands.”

“Perhaps if there were not enough pieces to construct half a cross in _Firenze_ alone, I wouldn’t,” Leonardo snorted. “In all honesty, I doubt that the acclaimed powers of relics are anything but a demonstration of the mind’s power.”

“Vinci!” Emilio gasped in mock shock, dramatically clutching at his chest, and very nearly knocked over a bookshelf from flinging himself back against it. “Such heathen speech!”

Leonardo raised an eyebrow, making a point of sitting down on the closest chair and putting on a bored face. “And that from someone who exposed himself to a figure of _La Madonna_?”

“Now, Vinci, if you will recall the story, I wasn’t the only one,” Emilio said with an utterly unashamed smirk, dusting himself off.

The artist rolled his eyes at that. “Yes, because three boys saluting _La Madonna_ with erect _péne_ is an improvement. The hardest part to believe is that _Maestro_ Andrea did not have you all flogged and thrown out of his workshop.”

“Perhaps _Maestro_ merely have had enough apprentices to recognize youthful antics,” Emilio replied. “Or he was sufficiently flabbergasted by the talent of his star pupil to pay us lesser mortals any attention.”

“Oh, hush, as if he was not gleefully pouring over your theories on the lethal properties of mercury,” Leonardo said, though he only too clearly remembered how Verrocchio had dragged him up to model for a statue of David, stating that out of everyone in the workshop, Leonardo had been the only one who did not have to practise on basic anatomy. And, not long after, introduced Leonardo to the Templar Order, stating that he saw no reason in not ensuring that the young artist had as large a network as possible.


	4. Chapter 4

_Firenze, December 1475_

It was a mild day, the sun warming the streets and chasing away the cold of the oncoming winter. A myriad of people were out and about, basking in the sunlight, and eagerly discussing utterly vapid and pointless things while fighting innocently for the more sunny spots of cobblestone. Leonardo had laid claim to the small bench in the even smaller courtyard beside his home and and workshop, scowled at anyone trying to enter, and had filled nearly an entire sheet of paper with sketches of the dozens of birds that had flocked to the courtyard - lured in by and now busy with gorging themselves on the seeds he had laid out.

He was occupied with trying to catch the glint of light in green feathers - even though he was working with red chalk, and he added a mental note to his already extensive collection of mental notes to start noting down colours beside his drawings - when the birds were spooked by someone entering the courtyard and coming to a stop next to the bench. Taking a small breath, Leonardo readied himself to scowl and angrily ask why people were disturbing his birds - hoping that it would not have the same poor outcome as when Archimedes had asked the same of a passing guard about his circles.

“You should buy caged ones. They don’t spook so easily,” Andrea del Verrocchio dryly commented, having known Leonardo long enough to wager a guess at the younger artist’s thoughts.

“I prefer to see them free,” Leonardo said, his anger at the disturbance utterly forgotten, and clambered to his feet, very nearly falling flat on his face when he realised that his left foot - the leg on which he had rested his sketchpad - had fallen asleep. “It’s good to see you, Maestro! You look well. Please, how can I be of service?”

Andrea’s smile soured, leaving an annoyed and slightly disgusted expression in its wake. “Order business,” he said, voice kept low, and gave a quick glance upwards, gaze sweeping over the roofs above them. “Can we talk inside?”

Leonardo, mouth suddenly dry, swallowed nervously and audibly, all thoughts of birds forgotten. And inside the workshop, he quickly went about fetching wine for them both, while his old teacher checked the windows and rafters for prying eyes.

Once they were certain that they did not have an assassin overhearing the conversation, they finally settled down - Leonardo managing to stealthily hide the last sketches he had made of his two regular boys from _La Rosa_ while Verrocchio was temporarily distracted with the failed design for a flying machine.

“Interesting idea, Leonardo. Though I still cannot see how something that much heavier than air can fly,” Verrocchio said, accepting the small cup handed to him, utterly obvious to the sketches quickly and rudely shoved into the shelf, and sat down in the well-worn chair.

“A goose is much heavier than air, and it flies,” Leonardo replied, and was about to launch into an enthusiastic tirade of his discoveries in aerodynamics; of surface-to-weight-ratios, and to fetch the multitude of calculations he had done, when his old teacher’s look made his mind stop dead in its tracks. “... It is just an idea I’m toying with.”

Verrocchio’s lips quickly quickly upwards into a wry smile. “Perhaps. In any case… I have unsettling news. Grandmaster Lombardi has fallen ill, and it is unlikely that he will survive for long. There are already certain… people who have begun to move for the position. Rodrigo Borgia, in particular, has already eliminated much of his potential competition.”

Leonardo swore appropriately, even if his dislike for the man so far was entirely from second-hand accounts.

“ _Miei pensieri esattamente_ ", Verrocchio said, appearing amused at Leonardo’s linguistic creativity. “Though I am not entirely sure that is anatomically possible. In any case, our Florentine brothers will likely call us to a summit soon to discuss the matter, and to decide with whom we should place our support.”

“Most are either already men of the Borgia or will be too afraid to go against him,” Leonardo said with a glare at his cup, suppressing an uncharacteristic urge to throw it against the nearest wall, and settled for clenching his empty hand instead. “He has rallied most of the enemies of the Medici behind him as it is, and bribed or bullied many others into joining.” Verrocchio raised an eyebrow at this, and Leonardo continued: “I… have a few sources that have told me as much.” He left out that those sources happened to frequent _La Rosa_ , with a particularly talkative one of those had visited Leonardo’s _bottega_ a few months before, and Emilio Russo’s frequent, encoded letters had kept him updated on what went on in _Venice_ as well. “He has already filled much of our Order with like-minded people, ensuring that he will be able to take the title practically unopposed. And, most likely, manage to set us even further back than the Assassins could ever hope to accomplish!”

“Peace, Leonardo,” Verrocchio said, and gave the younger man a moment to compose himself. “Perhaps the Order will flourish under Borgia rule,” he said, sipping his wine calmly. “It is possible that Rodrigo will manage to push us further towards our goal of uniting humanity under one banner.”

“It is also possible that he merely seeks power for himself, and does not care for any that stand in his way,” Leonardo spat.

“Or that.” The older sculptor nodded in agreement. “The Pazzi, the Barbarigo, and the Borgia have been old and powerful families in the Order. Their wealth and influence have granted us access to places and knowledge we would have been unable to reach otherwise, and their power held in check by a Grand Master true to our cause. I suppose..,” Verrocchio paused, a wry, almost amused smile crossing his face,” I suppose that we have spent so long fearing the Assassins that we forgot to pay attention to _il nido del serpente_ among ourselves.”

“Then what can we do, _insegnante_? Those of us still true to the Order are scattered, and even less in any positions to move against Rodrigo without risking their lives,” Leonardo asked, frustrated with his own impotence in the matter.

“There are still many of us, Leonardo, and while we may not rank high in the Order, many have power outside it,” Verrocchio replied, unaffected by his former student’s fidgeting. “We do as we always have. Mask our moves, continue our work, and use the Assassins.”

Of course Leonardo had - because fate had nothing if not a cruel sense of humour - decided just a moment before to take a drink to calm his nerves, and found himself at a sudden mix of stunned, shocked, and choking. “What!” he tried to say, only to break into a cough as his whole body tried to dislodge the fluid. “What?” he tried again after that, voice hoarse and broken. A third attempt, preluded by a heavy swallow, finally allowed him to, flatly, ask: “What.”

“The Assassins believe themselves to stand against corruption. All one needs to do is to make an undesirable person appear utterly foul and corrupt, and divert the Assassin’s attention to them,” the sculptor said with far too calm a smile. “And then our _piccolo problema_ will gone in a blur of white cloth dropping from a rooftop.”

Leonardo shuddered, trying not to think too hard on how his teacher had come across this knowledge. “I see,” he said, seeing only too clearly. And he who had thought that the Assassins’ reputation as ruthless killers were solely due to the Templars’ rumours!

“It’s a shame no one yet know the identity of _Il Assassino da Firenze_ , or we could solve our upcoming problem within the next month,” Verrocchio continued, frowning. “However, it is highly unlikely that the Assassin - or Assassins; I suspect several live in _Firenze_ alone - know of our involvement with the Order, seeing as we both are affiliated with the Medici. That should allow us to inquire further.”

“No one has caught _Il Assassino_ and lived to tell about it,” Leonardo said. “I suppose that, if he remained unaware, he could be a powerful ally against Rodrigo and his supporters…”

“And that will be our strategy.” Verrocchio positively beamed. “If it is of any comfort, my dear boy, it will be far from the first time that the Assassins have been tricked into eliminating troublesome individuals within our Order. Why, if one apparently pays generously enough, they will not even question who the target is!”

Leonardo nodded mutely, and, for a moment, the two artists sad still; the silence between them stretching until it approached awkwardness.

“Come, Leonardo,” Verrocchio said, putting down his empty cup on the small table that often doubled for Leonardo as a sketchboard, workplace, and, after a long night where his head would not stay quiet, pillow. “We shall go into the city. See if we cannot begin to sow the seeds among the Assassins and their followers. Perhaps we will be lucky, and our ‘issue’ taken care of before we need to get further involved.”

“Would that not be putting ourselves at an unnecessary risk?” Leonardo cautiously asked, even as he scrambled to his feet as well.

“A risk? Oh, no, Leonardo, no risk at all,” Verrocchio chuckled, brushing a bit of imaginary dust off his clothes. “Why, you are a brilliant young painter in the employ of the Medici, I am a brilliant sculptor who were once at the very heart of Piero de’Medici’s court, and, together, we just happen to be concerned and unsettled by the rumours we have heard from our Assassin-friendly patrons. It is a wonderful day, and so we merely take the conversation to the streets, and trust the Assassins’ long ears to ‘accidentally’ overhear our complaints when we withdraw to a deserted spot with low roofs to discuss it in detail.”

“And they call me the madman,” Leonardo muttered under his breath as Verrocchio pulled the door open, and they stepped onto the permanently busy _piazza_ outside the workshop to begin spreading the word of Rodrigo Borgia.   
  


_Firenze, January 1476_

Leonardo hummed to himself as he pocketed his trusty wrench and the small hammer he used for hammering in pins, trying to appear the very image of innocence as he left the small, murky alley leading to _Il Duomo_ \- one used primarily by patrolling guards and people in too much of a hurry to focus on anything but their destination.

“Leonardo!” Verrocchio called, heading down one of the many stairways of the streets, where old bits of the city had sunk or risen or simply been planned with no regards towards the level of the other roads, waving his arm briefly to catch the younger man’s attention.

Leonardo hurriedly wiped the grease from his hands. “ _Maestro_ ,” he said, surprised. “How can I be of service?”

“I have various news,” the sculptor replied, folding his hands and looking stately. “About some of our other... business.”

Leonardo nodded, stepping aside when the usual guard patrol came around the corner and, as they always did, headed down the dark alley.

“Unfortunately, it seems that Grandmaster Lombardi’s illness was worse than we sus-,” Verrocchio started, only to find himself interrupted by a sudden scream from the alley, and a young-wild-eyed guard bolted past them, shouting that he was not paid enough to deal with devil-possessed items.

From within the alley came more cries and the sound of clashing metal. The two artists listened to it for a few seconds before Verrocchio turned towards Leonardo - who hastily hid his grin - with a scowl. “Leonardo,” he said, with what his students and assistants had come to think of as The Voice; usually applied to situations that had resulted in someone ending up naked, covered in clay, or a mix of both. “What did you do?”

“We-e-e-ell…” Leonardo nervously tapped his nails together. “I… may have found an old suit of armour…” There was a distant scream from the alley, a loud smack, and a helmet rolled onto the street. Leonardo’s lips quirked at the sight, although Verrocchio’s stare did not lessen the slightest. “And I may have put a bit of clockwork in it…” A boot sailed past them, followed shortly by a panicked guard, sporting multiple colourful bruises and a shallow gorge in his cuirass, screaming to some dead ancestor for forgiveness and promising no one in particular to return to his old lifestyle as a farmer as he vanished down the streets towards the nearest gate. “And I may have hooked it up to a tripwire and given it a sword…”

There was a mighty crash, a cheer of victory, and bits of clockwork and gears rolled out of the alley. Verrocchio watched it impassionately, sighed and ran a hand over his face, and turned to walk, gesturing for the other man to follow.

“It was a blunt sword!” Leonardo insisted, hurriedly picking up the largest bits of clockwork and broke into a brief trot to catch up.

“You are a grown man, Leonardo, and so I shan’t try to correct your ways. But some day, that tendency of yours to play pranks will cause some people to retaliate violently,” Verrocchio said.

“I never try to harm anyone, though,” Leonardo muttered, mostly to himself, toying with one of the bent cogs. His mind was already coming up with six uses for that cog, then wandered down a random tangent and, two steps later, was arguing with itself over the tensile strength of a cow’s intestines.

“The more people think they have, the more fearful they are of losing face, and the more dangerous they are,” Verrocchio said, with the air of someone speaking from personal experience. “Common city guards are among the worst of such. They hold enough power to lord it over ordinary citizens, but they, themselves, are at the very bottom of the hierarchy, and, as such, abuse what little power they hold, when the opportunity presents itself. Their squad leaders are less prone to it, but still worse than their captains. The jokes that will bring a laugh from Lorenzo de’Medici - even if they are at his expense - will earn you a beating if you attempt the same on a guard. And unless you manage to have witnesses, well, then it would be your word against that of several guards, should you take it to court.”

“ _Va bene_. I will be careful,” Leonardo said, and took a few steps ahead to open the door to his workshop.

Once inside, and Verrocchio had done the customary search for unwanted ears, and Leonardo the customary puttering about for glasses and a wine bottle that was fit to be served for guests, the sculptor turned to the younger man with such a serious expression that Leonardo worried he had inadvertently offended his old teacher somehow.

“Leonardo. Grandmaster Lombardi is dead. Rodrigo Borgia now leads our Order.”

Leonardo very nearly dropped the bottle of wine, and entirely missed the cup he was trying to fill. “ _Cazzo_! Then what can we do?” he asked, hastily mopping up the small spill with a rag, used earlier in the day to clean up the jar of paint he had managed to knock over, and left the table with a fetching streak of pale red.

“We strengthen our efforts,” Verrocchio said, taking care not to accidentally get his clothes near the wine-and-paint smear. “I have found another three allies for our cause. You may have met Bartolomeo di Pasquino. I believe you joined the Order shortly after he did. “

Leonardo nodded, vaguely remembering a man a few years his senior, with a nose crooked enough to uncork bottles with. “And the other two?”

“Baccino da Firenze. He’s a tailor over in the Oltrarno district. And then Leonardo Tornabuoni.”

“A close relative to the Medici,” the younger artist said with a frown. “It is a good idea to get the Medici involved, though? They are allied with the Assassins, _Maestro_...”

“I haven’t gone senile yet. I’m aware of that,” Verrocchio snapped, annoyed, and put down his cup perhaps a bit harder than he normally would. “But his presence will lend our cause additional political weight, and being allied with the Medici means not only that the Tornabuoni family will oppose the Pazzi, it increases our chances that the Assassin will hear our rumours from the Medici court, rather than merely on the streets.”

Leonardo’s brow lifted in surprise and just a bit of worry. “So now we try to divert the Assassin’s attention to the Pazzi as well?” he asked, setting down his cup as well. “Isn’t that a bit… risky?”

“So far, I have only heard rumours. But apparently, this… _cospirazione_ goes deeper than either of us had suspected,” Verrocchio said. “If it  is true, then _Firenze_ stands before a great threat, and _il Assassini_ will have much better luck than us in uncovering it. And if it turns out that it’s baseless rumours, well, then we’ll merely have been concerned citizens.”

“And if the Borgia or the Pazzi hear that we are behind the dissent?” Leonardo cautiously asked. While he did want to make the world a better place, he had yet to find the point where he would be willing to give up his life for that cause, and he had heard enough whispers of how Rodrigo Borgia had managed to rise until he had the ear of the Pope himself.

“Ah, but therein lies the strength of increasing our numbers,” the sculptor said with a smile. “They cannot move directly against us without either bringing down both the Medici and Assassins on themselves, or break apart the Order from inside fighting. And so, they cannot do anything but try to bully us into submission, or leave us to our work. Not to mention that tracking down the source of a rumour will be nigh impossible, especially so if it is done in the shop of a tailor or spread by the gossiping hens of the Medici court.”

Leonardo nodded again in understanding, although the worry still gnawed at his gut. “ _Va bene_. When will I meet them?”

“At sunset. I’ve arranged a meeting at the _osteria_ just north of _piazza Santa Maria Novella_.” Verrocchio leaned back in his seat, and offered the younger artist a smile. “We still have a few hours. Tell me about the clockwork you used for your _soldato meccanico_. How did you make it strong enough to dent a man’s armour?”

A few hours, it turned out, was barely enough for the explanation, the demonstration, the reconstruction, and eventual calibrating, testing, fiddling, adjusting, ducking for cover, and, of course, the mad sketching.


	5. Chapter 5

_Firenze, April 7th, 1476_

The _taverna_ was well-lit and cheerful. In the corner, three musicians tried to entertain the crowd, though they had little success in playing louder than the rowdy patrons. At the table furthest away from the noise, in the area where the light was dimmer and the discussions even darker, Leonardo was in a remarkably cheerful mood - as were his three companions. The artist was remotely certain that he had only had two cups of wine; but, he was very unsure of just how many times those cups had been refilled along the way.

“... And-and, she was telling me of all the fo-oul things the Borgia had done!” Baccino said with a roar of laughter. The tailor was, Leonardo had found, a man both literally and metaphorically larger than life, despite his small speech impairment. Hands that could crush a man’s skull, seated on arms as thick as tree trunks, and, in turn, were attached to a body almost as wide across the shoulders as he was tall; yet those same hands were more than capable of the dexterity needed to embroider the cuff of a child’s sleeve with tiny, gold stars.

Bartholomeo di Pasquino, rubbish goldsmith by profession, competent brawler by choice - was considerably shorter, only coming up to Leonardo’s shoulder - or the middle of Baccino’s chest - but made up for the lack of stature by having the kind of temper that had sparked several wars. He also sported a number of fascinating facial scars, and a nose that had been broken enough times that the owner had simply stopped bothering to straighten it.

The other Leonardo - whom the others had simply taken to calling Tornabuoni to simplify matters - was by far the oldest of them; just at the start of his fifties, and generally observing the antics of the much younger people with a wry sort of amusement. Despite carrying himself with the easy poise of nobility - and being the uncle of none other than Lorenzo de’Medici himself - he had been more than friendly, and had had no issues with pulling both Bacconi and Leonardo into a hug when they had met.

Currently, Tornabuoni was sipping his wine, getting slowly and thoroughly sloshed at a slightly slower pace than the others. “I overheard two of Clarice’s handmaids discuss Francesco’s somewhat exotic attraction to certain farmyard animals,” he said, with a conspiratorial hiccup. “And that his son picks out which ones for him. I don’t know how they got that idea, though, so someone else has been out spreading stories.”

“That’s just repulsis... repule... replepul… nasty,” Leonardo slurred in reply, and warbled for a bit about how no one ever considered the animals’ need for a steady relationship, although he was well aware that no one was paying much attention.

“You know what we should?” Bartholomeo asked, waving his cup a bit around and splashing wine onto the already stained surface of the table, while Bacconi was gently patting Leonardo’s shoulder with a hand just slightly bigger than a spade. “We should get a name!”

“Name?” Tornabuoni asked, and Leonardo abandoned his erratic trail of thought in favour of looking up as well.

“ _Si, si_! Something like… like…” Bartholomeo’s eyes crossed as he tried to think; something Leonardo had found came with difficulty to the goldsmith, even while sober. “Like, the Priory of Sion! And, _piccolo_ Leonardo can be  our grandmaster!”

The other three gave him equally blank stares. “That’s a ridiculous name. And why Leonardo?” Tornabuoni said.

“Because it’s his birthday next week,” the goldsmith replied in the tone of voice that told he thought the answer was completely and perfectly obvious and that the other was an idiot for even asking, and drained the rest of his cup in one gulp.

“If we get a name, I want a better one,” Leonardo said, scrunching up his nose, and started to feel queasy from the heavy air and the effects of wine. “I don’t feel well.”

“You’ve gon-gone green,” Baccino commented with the quiet astonishment of those with the carefully cultivated tendency to state the obvious - usually found in tailors and hairdressers.

“Let’s get some fresh air, then,” Tornabuoni said, dropping off a gold florin to pay for their wine, and led the way through the crowded _taverna_. Bacconi, helpfully, half-carried Leonardo and kept him from falling over when his mind tried to align his balance with what his eyes observed, and Bartholomeo took up the rear, scowling at anyone who as much as dared smile in their general direction.

The next bit of time was fuzzy, until Leonardo found himself sitting in a haystack - a pair of curious horses watching him while chewing away on their evening meal at the other end - with a wood cup of water in his hands, and the distinctly sour taste of semi-digested wine lingering in his mouth.

“I’ll never drink outside of dinner again,” he groaned, resting his head in one hand and carefully sipped the cool and - thankfully - clean water.

“Well, as long as others are paying..,” Bartholomeo said with a smug grin, but was interrupted in whatever he wanted to say next by Bacconi holding up a hand, suddenly looking alert.

And, seconds later, a dark shadow passed overheard, soaring through the air above the alley and landed with but a whisper of boots on tile.

Tornabuoni gave the others a careful nod. “Must have been a cat,” he said, raising his voice slightly. “But, as I said, I’m certain that someone is plotting something against the Medici.”

The whisper on the roof ceased just above their heads, and Leonardo felt a chill run down his spine, realising that the predator above them could easily drop down on them, and they would not even know what had happened until they were all dead. “The question,” he said, swallowing his fear and tried to keep his voice from wavering, “is what the Pazzi would stand to gain from a conflict.”

“Their banks are-are competing with each other,” Bacconi replied. “That may be why.”

“Forlí is involved, too, though,” Tornabuoni said, and the other three gaped at him in genuine surprise. By common agreement to make their act more believable, they shared only a few details with each other outside of their meetings in alleys, crowded taverns, and other places that the long ears of the Assassins might reach.

“Forlí?” Bartholomeo asked; the first of them to recover from the surprise. “But _Firenze_ and Forlí have been allies for years. If anyone thought to invade Forlí, they would have _Firenze_ ’s army at their gates, not to mention that _Venezia_ would  also protest to anyone taking Forlí!”

“Maybe it’s not the city they’re after..,” Leonardo said with a frown, trying to chase the thought to its conclusion, and instead found it disappearing into the fog of nausea and headache. “Oh my head,” he settled for instead, curling slightly in on himself.

One of the horses nosed him in curious concern, and he, obediently, stroked its muzzle, earning a happy grunt and the flick of an ear in return.

“Apparently, Galeazzo Maria Sforza sold Forlí cheaply to Pope Sixtus in exchange for his daughter getting married. Things are really bad,” Tornabuoni continued. “The Pazzi are obviously planning something, the Barbarigo of Venice are up to something else, Forlí is involved with the Pope, and Rodrigo Borgia is sticking his nose into all of those things.”

“Agreed. Something is afoot.” Bartholomeo spat at the ground with a disgusted sound. “I hate when people skulk about plotting like that. I prefer someone you can punch, here and now.”

“You should try ta-alking to people,” Bacconi said. “Instead of picking fights.”

The whisper of leather on the tile picked up again, growing fainter as the owner snuck away over the rooftops.

All four men sighed in relief - though Bartholomeo and Leonardo’s were, perhaps, slightly deeper than the others, who had little idea of how close they had come to the swift, unmerciful death that was an Assassin.

“We should go home, and wait for any news,” Tornabuoni said. “And we will just have to see if our mission have had any success.”

“ _Va bene._ ” Leonardo tried to climb to his feet, but found that between his ever-growing headache, the pins and needles that ran up his left left, and the way the whole world tilted the moment he thought he was upright, he very nearly fell backwards into the hay again.

“I’ll ta-take our _piccolo_ Leonardo home,” Bacconi offered, wrapping a beefy arm around Leonardo’s shoulders to keep him steady, and the painter was more than happy to lean against the solid form, contemplating how he could still feel nauseous.

“I shall send word if I hear anything,” Tornabuoni said, nodded to the other three, and left the alley.

Bartholomeo did a half-salute and trotted off as well, muttering about how he still thought Priory of Sion was a good name, and an even better battlecry. Giving them a minute to get clear of the streets, and for Leonardo to regain some measure of feeling in his left foot, the last two men followed at a more leisurely pace.

Behind them, the horses continued chewing through the pile of hay, only snorting lightly in surprise when a white-robed figure climbed out, picked a few straws from a dark-lined hood, and scampered up the vertical wall with only the soft sound of air being disturbed. He had business to attend to.


	6. Chapter 6

_Firenze, April 8th, 1476_

When Leonardo awoke, it was in his own bed, with no recollection of how he had ended up there - and a headache that made him long for the peaceful oblivion of sleep. But with both bladder and stomach putting up too much of a fuss, he instead found himself spending the morning being even more unproductive than usual; alternating between nursing his hangover and cursing friends with too much wine; the noisy city; his own inability to say no; and the world in general.

Come midday, his mood had not improved much, though his headache had at least lessened to the point where it no longer hurt merely to think, and when someone decided to start hammering at his door, Leonardo found his normally considerable patience stretched thin.

“ _Madre Dio_ ,” he grumbled under his breath, “I’m coming, I’m coming!” and wrenched the door open with his best scowl and a snarled “What?!”

Two of the three fully armed guards outside took half a step backwards in shock, though their leader remained unfazed. “Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci?” he asked, scowling in return.

Leonardo swallowed, sudden panic clawing at his gut. “ _Si_?”

“You are hereby under arrest by the order of _Gli Ufficiali di Notte_ , by the accusation of engaging in sodomy.”

And just as that, the clawing sensation became that of his entire world falling to pieces around him. He only vaguely registered himself putting on a hat and cape, slipping the sigil ring of the Teplar order over his finger, stepping from his workshop, and started the walk towards _le Stinche_ , the three guards falling into step beside and behind him. He felt sick; the urge to vomit lurking just beneath the surface, and he could practically feel how the people upon the street looked at him with thinly veiled disgust as they passed through _piazza del Duomo_ \- he might as well carry a sign around his neck with how he felt their gaze.

His mind, ever busy, churned as he tried, desperately, to find out where he had taken a misstep. Had Paola betrayed him or some reason - money? Threats to shut down her brothel? Or had it perhaps been one of the young boys there. A client scorned, an accusation made against the worker, and, to save himself, a counter-accusation listing several clients and thus Leonardo's name had ended up with the Officers of the Night. Perhaps it was a personal attack against him; someone envious of his social climb.

Leonardo brushed his hands over his clothes, palms clammy and cold despite the fever pitch in his body. Oh, he knew fully well that accusing each other of sodomy was a favoured tactics among the nobility; founded or unfounded accusations. Leonardo was but a notary's _bastardo_ ; it could well be that it was it his patronage with the Medici that had roused some anonymous person's anger. Or was he merely a safe target; a demonstration of power and risk to people of a higher standing, without him being able to do much in retalitation without losing whatever thin scraps of dignity and patronage he could possibly cling to after this?

So busy was his mind with these thoughts that he only noticed they had reached _via del Mercantino_ when he heard a nearby herald loudly declare that the _Piazza della Signoria_ would bear witness to the hanging of an enemy of the state the next morning. Swallowing thickly, trying not to imagine the noose around his neck, Leonardo was half-followed, half-led by the three guards accompanying him further down the _via del Palagio_ and to the low, narrow doorway that led into the bowels of the mighty _Stinche_.

The five _guardi_ in the small office to the immediate left looked up with a bored expression, and Leonardo wondered if that was because he was not screaming or struggling or even in chain as most other arrivals probably were. The city guards that had delivered him grumbled something, signed a few papers, and then Leonardo was led further into the prison. There was a rank stank in the air; of fear and anger and unwashed bodies and lavatory buckets that were emptied just a few times too few.

Another guard waved him along, with a second taking up the rear with a sword held ready, and Leonardo was led along the wide cooridor that followed the inside of _le Stinche_ 's tall walls. Wide enough, in fact, that it would allow two guards to wrestle an unruly prisoner along and still leave room enough for another person to slip past without being in the way. All along the wall were doors to the cells; solid oak wood, with small bars at an even tinier window through which food and messages could be passed. Leonardo knew, having passed by _le Stinche_ several times, that each cell had another barred window to the streets outside, where one may recieve alms from passerbys, or simply find a soul to speak to. Or, as some, to plead their case and hope that a noble would take on their cause and save them from a death sentence.

His breathing caught at the thought, and he tried once again not to imagine the tightening of the noose around his neck; or, god forbid, the crackling of the pyre that many had been condemned to over the years. His over-active imagination was only too quick to supply the feel of flames licking against his skin; not in a brief, painful caress of sticking one's hand too close to the fire, but relentlessly eating at flesh and cloth until there was nothing but ash and pain...

Thankfully, the small cell he was led to was empty and happened to have a view of the more deserted part of _Via del Luvio_ , and he found himself with nearly two hours to calm his thoughts and his nerves. Much of that time was spent pacing the few feet of space he had; nervously looking out of the barred window, hoping desperately not to see anyone he knew, and feeling his fingers itch and twitch with the urge to do something until he realised he had picked at the hardened skin of his palms until they bled. And still he had not come to a conclusion of who could have laid the accusation against him - and his mental list of people who could be behind it in one way or another was by now up to around half the city's population.

Pacing another round through the cell - eight by five feet, twelve of the floor bricks laid slightly higher than the others, a third of the bricks made from different clay than the others, and Leonardo was certain that the mortar had crushed seashells in it - he tried to calm his mind. The old grime on the cell walls and the all-permanating stench in the air made him long for clean water. Even though most of the _dottori_ insisted that cleaning oneself only made the body more suspendible towards catching disease, Verrocchio had been strict in forcing his apprentices to wash their hands and forearms after painting or sculpting - pointing out that dirty hands would spread unwanted pigment or clay to whatever work was being made, leaving unsightly cracks in paint, smears of colour on sculptures, or faults in cast metal. Leonardo had grown used to washing his hands five or more times daily, and now felt his skin positively itch with the need to be clean.

Pausing, staring at the cracked skin of his palms and the beads of dried blood there, he wondered if he was already going insane. Certainly there was no other reason that his primary concern right now was the woeful access to clean water, when he had plenty of other reasons to be worried. His brain helpfully and immediately supplied the mental image of a pyre around him, and Leonardo shunted away _that_ thought with a shudder.

His musing were interrupted when the guards reappeared, calmly informing him that he was to see the _magister_. Trying not to wring his hands, settling for twisting the heavy ring on his finger instead, and wishing that he had put on better clothes before he had left, Leonardo meekly followed after the guards - praying, desperately, that the judges would be of the kind persuation as he was once more led through the city to the _Palazzo della Signoria_. It did not help the panicked flutter of his heart when he saw the large platform for the public hangings dominating the _piazza_.

What he had not expected, however, was to enter the anteroom and find Tornabuoni and Bacconi there among the eight-odd others, looking up and appearing just as surprised to see him as he was with them.

"Well, at least now we know for certain that the accusation is due to us spending time together," Tornabuoni said, as Leonardo took a seat on the bench between him and a morbidly overweight man with several chins wobbling in quiet anger and a large wart on his nose (or, possibly, a small part of Leonardo's mind mused, a nose on his wart). "But who made the accusation against the four of us still escapes me," Tornabuoni continued, unaffected by the sheer quantities of chins in his vicinity, "perhaps you have come up with an idea within your bright mind, _piccolo_ Leonardo?"

Leonardo shook his head briskly, feeling claustrophobic as well as frustrated within the tiny antechamber, and not helped overly by the intense stink of nervous people. "Bartholomeo is here?" he asked, not trusting his vocal cords with longer sentences.

He had hardly managed to finish the sentence before another four guards arrived, bodily dragging a struggling, scowling, and swearing Bartholomeo between them - and, of the four of them, he was the only one still in shackles. The man wrested free of the obviously hard grasp, spat at the ground, and went to sit next to Bacconi, grumbling under his breath all the while. Much to Leonardo's relief, the four guards retreated after that, leaving behind but the original two guards near the door to the courtroom. Within, there was an ever-growing chorus of agitated voices as whoever was currently on trial vehemently disagreed with current verdicts, although the thickness of the door made it nigh impossible to understand anything of what was being said.

" _Bastardi_ ," Bartholomeo snarled. "They drag me in for 'disturbing the peace', and now I'm suddenly being accused of sodomy. Me! Ask any _puttana_ within the city, and they can vouch that I prefer the _figa_ over any _pene_ or _culo_ wagged at me! Who made the claim, anyway?"

Bacconi merely shrugged, and, after several false starts, managed to stammer his way through, "We don't know."

" _Porco dio_ , nobility and their idea of entertainment," the shorter man growled and all but threw himself back at the wall in a slouch. "No offence," he hastily added to Tournabuoni.

"None taken," the older man replied with a wry smile, although it did not quite reach his eyes, and two fingers were worrying the hem of his sleeve. "But I do hope that your little... 'episode' last night won't affect our trial. My _nipote_ is dear to me, but I'd rather not need his help in this matter..."

Leonardo somehow managed to avoid having a complete panic attack at the mention of Lorenzo de'Medici, and, later, would be quite proud of that fact. He did not, however, fully manage to gather his thoughts before the large doors were flung open and a short man with an impressively large gut and an even bigger black eye stormed through, trying, futilely, to keep a hat seated upon his glistening bald head. A few others - servants, or possibly personal doctors, if one was to judge by the bags they carried - followed, pleading futilely for the nobleman to mind his temper and his health and his heart.

The guards looked remarkably tired, as if they had seen the very same sight day after day, and waved the three men inside the courtroom. Tornabuoni went first, by all apperances looking as if this was merely a dull disruption of his day. Bacconi went after him, seeming more angry than upset, and keeping his fists clenched. Bartholomeo, however, paused for a moment - no more, really, than as if stretching - gave Leonardo a quick nod and touched his own, heavy ring.

Hoping he had understood the gesture, Leonardo turned his ring, ensuring that the Templar symbol engraving faced upwards, and followed the other three into the Magister's courtroom. He was surprised, though, to find that a young man, barely out of the gangly age of adolecence, and wearing an utterly unapologetic smile that fitted his handsome, even delicate, features. Leonardo was, for just a moment, distracted by the urge to sketch that face and commit its perfection to canvas or clay. But then he turned his eyes back to the room before him, and reality forcefully pushed away any stray thoughts.   
  


_Firenze, April 8th, 1476_

The _gonfaloniere_ , seated behind a broad desk, was a thin man; well on the side of skinny, with a long jaw and high forehead, and thin hair combed back to hide a beginning baldness - and all in all reminded Leonardo of a disgruntled heron. There were deep, dark rings below a set of intelligent eyes, and the _gonfaloniere_ had steepled his fingers, watching the five men before him with a tired expression. Behind him stood a man, the very opposite of the gonfalionere and sporting several chins - the engineer did not immediately recognise him as anything other than as a member of the Signoria, although the Templar ring upon the man's finger made him exhale quietly in relief. There was an ally here.

"You again, Jacopo?" the gonfaloniere asked, in a tinny voice, and shuffled his papers a bit. "Same charge as last time, I see."

The young man that had accompanied the four friends merely shrugged innocently. "Someone does not like me, _signoria_ ," he said with a voice as smooth as silk.

"That much is obvious," the gonfaloniere said and leaned back in his seat. " _Signore_ Uberto, would you read the charge against these five men?"

The Templar, Uberto - and Leonardo found his mind racing, knowing that he had heard that name somewhere, knew that there was something he had to remember about this man, but could not find that thread of thought he needed to recall what it was - nodded and cleared his throat.

"This was found in the _tamburo_ at the _Palazzo Vecchio_ early this morning," he said, voice clear and even. "The accusation is as follows: 'I notify you, _Signori Officiali_ , concerning a true thing, namely that Jacopo Saltarelli, who]dresses in black and is about seventeen years old, has been a party to many wretched affairs and consents to please those persons who exact certain evil pleasures from him.'"

"Sounds like a conisseur. I'm certainly not aware of how to evilly pleasure anyone," Jacopo commented.

"Quiet, you," the gonfaloniere snapped. "Uberto, please continue."

The _signoria_ inclined his head and continued: "'And in this way he has served several dozen people about whom I know a good deal, and here will name a few: Bartholomeo di Pasquino, goldsmith, who lives in Vacchereccia. Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci, who lives in Campidoglio. Baccino, a tailor, who lives by Orsanmichele. Leonardo Tornabuoni, called _il teri_ ; dresses in black. These committed sodomy with said Jacopo, and this I testify before you.' This is how the denunciation is written, and so I have read it."

And then Leonardo remembered. Uberto Alberti - a member of the _Signoria_ and the powerful Alberti _familia_ , lawyer, judge, and known for his utter ruthlessness in seeing criminals persecuted regardless of their social rank and standing. The only comfort was that the current _gonfaloniere_ was known to be a relatively kind and just man who did not always condemn people to the noose just because they looked suspicious - or at least so the rumours went.

With him and a Templar brother - and Leonardo glanced down quickly to confirm that his own ring was still easily visible - there was a good chance, the young engineer felt certain of, that the four (five, his mind added, wondering where this Jacopo fitted into the puzzle) of them could be free again by sunset. Or, perhaps, even as early as by the end of this trial.

" _Merda_ ," the gonfalioniere sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "You lot are the third group today. I am half-tempted to let you go, just because you're the only ones not to immediately start yelling at me after being told you're accused of."

Leonardo fought hard to keep the burning hope from showing on his face, even as his heart hammered against his ribs in sheer eagerness of leaving this event far, far behind.

"Any of you plead guilty to the charges?" the _gonfaloniere_ asked, tapping stubby fingers on the table.

"Perfectly innocent, _maestro_ ," Jacopo said, with a broad, charming grin, and a bow that could quite easily be classified as mocking.

"Not guilty," Leonardo said, and made a concious effort to not wet his lips, no matter how nervous he was. Oh, it was not a lie - sodomite he was, but the charge did claim that it was with this Jacopo. And while Leonardo would definitely not have minded that one's company in bed, he had never seen the young man before now.

The other three made similar murmurs of agreement.

"Ah, _signore_ , a word, if I may?" Uberto said and, with a small gesture, the _gonfalioniere_ leaned in for a brief, whispered conversation.

"You know, it's actually odd that people declare themselves innocent. Usually, people are lining up to admit sodomy they never committed, just to avoid the much harsher sentence if they are found guilty," the _gonfalioniere_ said, thoughtfully stroking his chin. "Uberto and I agree that such vehement insistence on innocence can only mean that you are, indeed, innocent of this crime... Or that this denounciation against you is the lesser of other crimes you have committed. I therefore sentence you to a full investigation by the _Ufficiali di Notte_ , and for my judgement to be renewed in a month when evidence or lack of same is presented before me. You are dismissed."

"W-w-we w-what?" Bacconi asked, voice shaking almost as much as his hands. "But we-we we're i-i-innocent!"

"Surely, if you are truly innocent, then you would have nothing to worry about," Uberto Alberto sneered, jotting down notes. "Or perhaps something worth confessing has crossed your mind? After all, the punishment is much less severe for those who admit to their crimes, rather than have the _ufficiali_ find the needed evidence."

Leonardo carefully counted his heartbeats and prayed that he would spontanously lose four or five or six feet of height - just enough that he could hide in the mousehole he could see in the corner of the hall of justice before the guilt and shame became too much. But he had been so discreet! He had even flirted with plenty of Paola's courtesans, and they had in turn treated him like a very regular customer - rather than as the one who had supplied them with long, wickedly sharp needles in their stockings to defend themselves with in case of a rowdy customer.

With steps that felt as if his feet were made of lead, Leonardo followed the others in a daze of disbelief and horror, and scarsely paid attention when the two _guardi_ led him back through the city streets. It was only when they ran into a large crowd at the crossroad of _via del Palagio_ and _Via del Luvio_ , courtesy of two carts that had collided and overturned, blocking the street between the vendors, and the two drivers making enough of a ruckus in blaming each other for the fault that people had stopped to watch, ensuring that the entire street in both directions was impossible to push through.

Several of the city guards were trying to simultanously break up the argument, get the carts righted, and disperse the crowd without causing an accidental and spontanous riot in the process, but mostly just caused people to yell louder. Leonardo quietly looked upward, ignoring the yelling in favour of watching the sky and wondering to himself when he would see the blue sky again, unimpeded as it currently was of clouds and darkness. It looked to be a beautiful spring in _Firenze_. And, unless his eyes were deceiving him, there were two shapes on the roof.

Pausing for a moment, reining in his own mind before it happily got distracted figuring out how one could turn all roofs in _Firenze_ into gardens, Leonardo casually glanced upwards again and, yes, there were indeed two people sitting on the rooftops. The sun was too bright for him to pick out any details, other that it appeared to be two young men, watching the commotion on the street from their vantage point.

Perhaps they were the same he had seen just over a year ago, jumping across the roofs with an ease that a bird would envy, and who had fearlessly flung themselves off the side of one building to let a cart of hay break the otherwise sure to be fatal fall. Leonardo knew he would be certain if he saw them move - everyone, he had noticed long ago, moved in unique ways; different way of putting the feet, different way the arms moved, different paces, different backs... Everyone, truly, was a miracle in themselves; a hundred, no, a thousand tiny muscles and bones moving in perfect coordination to propel a single person forward or to leap into the air, or to-

"I said, move it, _stronzo_!" the guard yelled, shoving at Leonardo's back and snapping him back to reality.

The crowd had still not dispersed. Leonardo murmured a quick apology to his two handlers, and meekly followed as they went the long way around _la Stinche_. Leonardo kept his eyes to the ground, refusing to look up and meet the eyes of a soon-to-be fellow inmate. How many, he wondered, were there on charges of sodomy? At least they lived in civilised times, and people were no longer punished for such claims by being castrated - or hung immediately. Again, there was the ghostly feel of a noose around his neck, and Leonardo felt a glimmer of relief in that he would at least face a fair trial.   
  


_Firenze, April 10th, 1476_

It had taken what little coin he had had on him, but Leonardo did not regret bribing one of _Firenze_ many, bored children and having it fetch him pen and paper. A wooden plate across his knees allowed him a relatively stable surface on which to draw and, perhaps more importantly currently, write letters.

He had sent letters to most of the people he knew that might be able to help his release - Verrochio had been the first, in a letter that had been a veiled warning. Obviously, they had managed to stick their noses in to matters belonging to Templars at the top, and it was clear that any interference in those plans were not tolerated. Leonardo could only hope that they were the first, and that they were seen merely as temporary dissendents that could be taught a lesson and left at that - the last thing he wanted for any of his circle of acquaintances were for any of them to be strung up for imagined crimes.

Or, in his own case, not quite that imaginary. But Leonardo still had faith in Madame Paola - he had already sent her one letter, carefully encoded in the cypher he had personally developed for the courtesans to use, and a reply had discreetly been dropped through his window in the dead of morning. While it had been brief, Paola had assured him that while she had been questioned, she had revealed nothing. This was followed by the coded word for 'guard', next to a crude sketch of a pair of scissors and what could have been a money pouch if not for the exaggerated hairiness. Leonardo chose not to dwell too much on the meaning, although he made a mental note to ask for the story behind the drawing - even if the initial mental image made him flinch in sympathy pain.

Several more letters went out over the course of the next weeks. Patrons; friends; people who had passed through his workshop. Anyone he hoped would be willing to act as a character witness on his behalf. The few replies he did get back - containing for the most part either condolences and apologies, or some variation of 'please do not send more letters' - were used for sketches and notes as Leonardo tried to stay sane, slowly filling the walls of his cell as the days went by.


End file.
